STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator STEELE-JOHN (Western Australia) (13:54): Today, I am speaking about the discrimination enacted by airlines in Australia. My friend Shane shared a video on social media that went viral. It showed his experience of discrimination on an aeroplane.

Shane is a power chair user and has an assistance dog, and the video demonstrated that the airline staff failed to find a way for his assistance dog and his chair battery to be stored on the plane. Shane's experience is not an isolated incident; it is an example, one example, of a much bigger problem disabled people face every day when moving around our own communities.

I reached out to the community to find out how widespread this transport discrimination is. Of the 160 respondents who travel on buses, on trains, on taxis, rideshares planes, 88 per cent told me that they had experienced some kind of discrimination while using these services. Here's just a taste of what they experience: people with assistance dogs being refused service, train stations without lifts, people with invisible disabilities copping discrimination and harassment from the rest of the community for using the disabled spot on the train, a non-verbal person having their foot run over because the driver considered no communication to mean go, multiple wheelchairs and mobility aids being broken apart by airport security, and folks not being able to use their local bus because the ramp is broken.

Disabled people should not have to cross our fingers every time we go out and try to navigate our communities. Access to community is in fact our right, not a privilege. We have a Disability Discrimination Act.

It is time for our transport system to be held accountable to upholding those rights and standards.